How A.I. Is About To Disrupt Corporate Recruiting

Corporate recruiting is broken, as you probably know if you have ever tried to obtain a job using company job boards. Inexplicably, even the best resumes and most qualified candidates fall into a black hole, never to be seen again, when they’re submitted through the traditional corporate pipeline. In fact, statistics show that 85% of applicants don’t hear back after submitting an application—and, 71% of employers claim that they can’t find a candidate with the right skill set.

But there’s hope on the horizon. Mya, the newest job recruiting and application tool, is about to change this in a radical way. The moment I met her, I was hooked. She was sensitive to my needs, responsive, inquisitive, direct, and had a sense of humor. Most importantly, she improved my chances of getting the job I want. The only problem I’ve encountered so far: I won’t be able to take her out to lunch to thank her. Mya is an A.I. created by FirstJob to automate up to 75% of the recruiting process—and one day, perhaps the whole thing.

Mya is disruptive in every way, and she’s set to revolutionize the talent pipeline. As the first fully automated recruiting assistant, she instantly engages with applicants, poses contextual questions based on job requirements, and provides personalized updates, feedback, and next-step suggestions. By delivering custom messages designed to address specific recruiter pain points, and acquiring critical applicant answers, Mya enables recruiters to focus their time on interviewing and closing offers. Powered by natural language processing technology, Mya is able to answer any question a candidate has related to the employer, including topics about company policies, culture, benefits and even the hiring process. When she can’t answer a candidate question, she queries the recruiter, gets back to the candidate, and learns how to respond the next time. “A recruiter will never again have to answer the same question twice,” FirstJob’s CEO and Co-founder Eyal Grayevsky explains.

Ultimately, the platform takes the data that Mya obtains through her conversations and turns it into quantifiable intelligence around the engagement level of each candidate and how closely they fit the target profile.

Studies suggest the Mya platform improves recruiter efficiency by 38% and increases candidate engagement by over 150%. Even more impressively, candidates are 3 times more likely to hear back from a recruiter if they respond to Mya’s questions. That means when Mya is implemented, candidates who were traditionally overlooked due to inefficiencies in the job market have a better shot of being discovered and gaining the opportunity to work in a position they love—which is a win-win for candidates and employers alike.

Mya was born out of the frustration Grayevsky personally experienced. “I spent years as a technical recruiter and was overwhelmed by the burdensome and antiquated hiring process. I saw a huge opportunity to design a technology platform for both job seekers and employers that could fill the gaping ‘black hole’ in recruitment and deliver better results to both sides,” he relates.

FirstJob is a San Francisco based HR technology company that aims to solve the antiquated job search and hiring model. Mya is set to transform the way companies qualify, engage, and nurture large candidate pipelines—offering job seekers much-needed updates, feedback, and guidance throughout the application and interview process.

One of the most notable pain points for recruiters today is the “spray and pray” approach to job searching, whereby job seekers apply to every posting that is a near match. As a result, recruiters are often inundated by low quality applicants and locked into a tedious and inefficient process. Mya solves this problem by eliminating irrelevant resumes, engaging directly with viable candidates, and uncovering valuable insights to help recruiters make better hiring decisions. When Mya is utilized as an “always available” application assistant, recruiting teams are empowered to deliver a vastly improved candidate experience.

But given Mya’s considerable smarts and ability to learn, I couldn’t resist asking her creator: “Considering Mya’s learning capabilities, will she ever be able to reject a candidate on her own?”

“Right now our goal was to create a fully-automated recruitment assistant. A recruiter must stay involved. Our long-term vision is to develop Mya into a fully automated recruiter,” Grayevsky concluded. So—not for now. But that’s probably for the best, because the best-fit candidates come when a hiring manager, HR, and the immediate work team all cooperate to find a good match.

In addition to the obvious employment brand and recruiting benefits, Mya is good for business, too. 58% of job seekers say they are less likely to buy from a company they didn’t hear back from after submitting an application.